The Smithsonian National Zoo gets into the holiday season with the ZooLights festival, which launched Nov. 29 in Washington, D.C. The event will run nearly every night Nov. 29 to Jan. 1 from 5-9 p.m. and offers visitors a delightful, illuminated walk through the zoo property.

The world's largest museum complex is bracing for a $40 million cut in funding due to the budget stalemate in Congress, but the Smithsonian Institution vows to keep the doors open at its museums and National Zoo.

In 1898, a U.S. military commission approved a grant to Samuel Langley, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, to study powered flight. As part of its scientific mission, the Smithsonian subsequently distributed literature about aeronautical principles, an effort supported in part by federal taxes. Among those who studied this material were Wilbur and Orville Wright, whose own experiments led them to achieve controlled, powered flight on this day in 1903.

It was a rather odd sight: as an array of people, including former first lady Laura Bush, took up shovels at the groundbreaking for the first national museum dedicated exclusively to African-American history and culture, the nation's first black president sat watching, no shovel in hand.